The Plenary Session of the Mijas Town Hall passed on Wednesday 3rd a budget increase of 53.476.158,95 euros. Most of this amount, around 45 million euros, will be allocated to the area of Infrastructures and Works. This extension went ahead with the votes in favour of the government team and the representative of Cs and with the abstention of PSOE.

During the plenary debate, the councillor for Economy and Finance, Mario Bravo (PP), assured that this budget increase seeks to respond to the demands of the residents. “We believe that the responsibility of this Town Hall is not to have money in the bank, but to satisfy the needs of the population, in a controlled and responsible way, therefore, instead of applying 100% of the surplus as previous councils did, in our opinion, in an irresponsible way, the modification of the budget that we bring today is the implementation of approximately 50% of the surplus of 2023, of the unspent money”, said Bravo, stressing that it was “in December when the initial approval of the budget for 2024 was made, accounts that amount to 129. 129,687,168.70 euros, which represents an increase of 16.59% over the current budget, which had been extended since 2022”. 

 

"Since 2018 a budget had not been approved before January 1st, but it was absolutely necessary to provide the municipality with accounts that allowed us to set a clear course, aimed at providing services to citizens to make Mijas the best place to live. That is why as soon as we entered the municipal government, we did so. Now, we are increasing the accounts by incorporating these more than 53.4 million euros", said Bravo. 

It will be the area of Infrastructures and Works to which most of this increase will be allocated, to be precise a total of 44,771,230.60 euros, of which 7,685,808.13 euros correspond to the incorporation of remaining funds and 37,085,422.47 euros to supplementary credits. 

 

In addition, he described as “fundamental” the items earmarked for the completion of the ‘Gran Parque’ or ‘Parque del Ahogadero’ (17 million euros), completion of the ‘Los Santos’ car park in Las Lagunas (10 million), and for the pending payment of expropriations (6,9 million). 

 

Political responses

PSOE spokesman, Roy Perez, said that the municipal budget “is a fraud, with accounts that were falsified in both expenditure and income” and warned the government team that this extension will bring with it, in Perez’s words, “serious consequences, as I remind you that this year the fiscal regulations come into force again and with these accounts you won’t be able to comply with them, so surely in 2025 you will be obliged to make an economic financial plan”. 

 

In the first intervention of ‘Ciudadanos Mijas’, its spokesman, José Carlos Martín, pointed out that he was voting in favour of this extension, recalling that most of the projects that are going to be tackled belong to the previous government team. “In the budget modification, you bring 37 million euros promoted by this councillor and by the outgoing government team and it seems that they can be executed”, said Martín,  and added that "78% are investments that this councillor promoted when he was in Infrastructures, which you said could not be carried out and here they are". 

 

In response to the opposition, the councillor for Finance pointed out that on October 31st, the previous government team had no municipal budget, experiencing, “once again, the shame that over 100 million euros that they promised to spend last year have not been spent, it is the same one that they have been selling every year naming it and then shelving it, they have lived by making promises and not enough realities”.

Meanwhile, the socialist councillor Josele González (PSOE) accused the government team of lying with the budget approval. “If you justified a motion of censure by saying that we had depleted the municipal coffers, and if you have been telling the groups, the elderly, the people you meet with that there is no money since the 2nd of November, today your discourse does not hold water, because there are 53 million euros that you have decided to include in the budget modification to add to the 130 million euros that you already approved just 54 days ago, a budget that is nothing more and nothing less than a dead letter”. 

In this regard, Martin stressed that in his eight years in the municipal government more than 120 actions worth 80 million were executed, 54 of these between 2019 and 2023, "and to this we add all these actions that you have found and with which we agree because it is a continuity of our work".

General interest

In her final speech, the mayoress, Ana Mata (PP), pointed out that the government team works for the "general interest of the people of Mijas", giving continuity to committed projects "regardless of who has promoted them" and taking on new ones. “This budget modification is due to the political commitment that this government team made on the 2nd of November, that the Mijas Town Hall would start having the commitments well described in the budgets”.

Mata announced that they are going to carry out others that have been claimed, but that "have fallen into oblivion", such as, she said, "the residence for the elderly, health infrastructure, stabilization of beaches, or social housing. Finally, the councillor, as did Bravo, said that more budget modifications will be made this year. 

The vote, which took place after a three-hour recess, passed with the votes of the government team and the spokesperson of Cs, José Carlos Martín, the only councillor from the liberal group present at the time of the election, after the absence of the councillor Mariló Olmedo (Cs) for personal reasons, and the abstention of PSOE.

Mobility

According to the government team, optimising the internal mobility of the municipality is another of the main focuses of this budget increase.

In the case of the Parque Andalucía car park, 130,000 euros are earmarked for the drafting of a new project in which the existing trees will be maintained and which, therefore, will respond to the neighbourhood's complaint about the previous government team's project. 

For the Doña Ermita car park, 120,000 euros are earmarked for the drafting of the project, which proposes to carry it out in an area located in front of the Indira Gandhi Primary School. There are also 130,000 euros for the drafting of the project for a new car park in Barrio Santana in Mijas Pueblo, an action that the executive of Ana Mata had already expressed on several occasions its intention to carry out. Likewise, an allocation of 300,000 euros will be given to the improvement of the access to the Ermita neighbourhood (Mijas Pueblo) to draw up the project and start its execution before the end of the year, if everything goes according to plan.

Sports facilities

In terms of sports facilities, 200,000 euros have been earmarked for the drafting of the project for the complete remodelling of the Sports Centre in Las Lagunas, as well as 45,000 euros for the extension and remodelling of the football pitch in La Cala and a further 120,000 euros for the sports complex in this urban area, in the Cortijo Colorado area, among other matters. 

Also 60,000 euros are earmarked for the roofing projects in the sports areas of educational centres. Along with this, new municipal facilities in the area of Cortijo Don Elías (Las Lagunas) with administrative, leisure and commercial use spaces, for which 100,000 euros correspond to the tender and start of execution by the end of this year.

Other projects

Other actions included in this budget amendment are improvements to the cemetery mortuary (70,000 euros), the adaptation of the façade and access to the Manuel España Theatre (60,000 euros), together with the drafting of the project for the reform of the auditorium in Mijas Pueblo (120,000 euros).

To all this must be added, the government team pointed out, a series of works and infrastructures which were left pending execution by the previous municipal government and which require allocations amounting to 30,163,688.73 euros. These are, specifically, the Los Santos car park (10,136,000 euros), the Ahogadero park (17,427,688.73 euros), the La Cala swimming pool (800,000 euros) and the multi-purpose building with therapeutic pool (1,800,000 euros).

The Fiestas and Traditions department is another of the areas which has requested an increase in its budget. This increase amounts to 2,120,654.71 euros, of which 1,118,814.90 euros correspond to an increase in credit, and the remaining amount to the incorporation of residual funds.

Thanks to this, the area will be able to contract artists for the fairs of La Cala and Mijas Pueblo (466,152.50 euros) or to execute a sentence related to the SGAE and which establishes the payment to the organisation of 29,133.45 euros pending payment, says the Executive, "by the previous government team".

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